“Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau come from different worlds but the same species. … At every turn, whatever the song, both musicians played with alert intelligence and deep sensitivity … an exhilarating rush.” —New York Times

Minneapolis, March 24, 2014— Recently called “the most influential jazz pianist of the last 20 years” (New York Times), Brad Mehldau combines rigorous artistry, eclectic music tastes, and breathtaking improvisational capabilities. Known for his singular, intense live performances, Mehldau returns to the Walker for a two-day celebration that offers distinctly different sides of one of today’s most compelling music-makers Tuesday, April 8 and Wednesday, April 9, 8 pm in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater.

The first evening features a US exclusive 2014 engagement of Mehldau’s duo collaboration with Chris Thile, star mandolinist and singer for the Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek. Thile is known as one of the most exciting forces working not only in progressive bluegrass but also across the broader folk-pop music realm.

Brad Mehldau
Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has recorded and performed extensively since the early 1990s. Mehldau’s most consistent output over the years has taken place in the trio format. Starting in 1996, his group released a series of five records on Warner Bros. entitled The Art of the Trio (recently re-packaged and re-released as a 5-Disc box set by Nonesuch in late 2011). During that same period, Mehldau also released a solo piano recording entitled Elegiac Cycle, and a record called Places that included both solo piano and trio songs. Elegiac Cycle and Places might be called “concept” albums made up exclusively of original material with central themes that hover over the compositions. Other Mehldau recordings include Largo, a collaborative effort with the innovative musician and producer Jon Brion, and Anything Goes, a trio outing with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy.

His first record for Nonesuch, Brad Mehldau Live in Tokyo, was released in September 2004. After ten rewarding years with Rossy playing in Mehldau’s regular trio, drummer Jeff Ballard joined the band in 2005. On September 27, 2005, the label released its first album from the Brad Mehldau Trio, Day is Done. An exciting double live trio recording entitled Brad Mehldau Trio Live was released on March 25th, 2008 (Nonesuch) to critical acclaim. On March 16, 2010, Nonesuch released a double-disc of original work entitled Highway Rider, the highly anticipated follow up to Largo. The album was Mehldau’s second collaboration with renowned producer Jon Brion and featured performances by Mehldau’s trio (drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier) as well as percussionist Matt Chamberlain, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman. In 2011 Nonesuch released , a two CD release with a companion DVD of the 2006 performance, and Modern Music, a collaboration between pianists Brad Mehldau and Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli. In 2012 Nonesuch released an album of original songs from the Brad Mehldau Trio, Ode, the first from the trio since 2008’s live Village Vanguard disc and the first studio trio recording since 2005’s Day is Done. Ode went on to garner a Grammy nomination. Nonesuch released the Brad Mehldau Trio’s Where Do You Start, a companion disc to the critically acclaimed Ode, in the fall of 2012. Whereas Ode featured eleven songs composed by Mehldau, Where Do You Start comprises the Trio’s interpretations of ten tunes by other composers, along with one Mehldau original. In 2013 Mehldau produced and performed on Walking Shadows, the acclaimed Nonesuch release from Joshua Redman. 2013 also saw a number of collaborative tours including a duo tour with mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, piano duets with Kevin Hays, and a new electric project with drummer Mark Guiliana entitled “Mehliana” which will have its debut release in 2014.

Mehldau’s musical personality forms a dichotomy. He is first and foremost an improviser, and greatly cherishes the surprise and wonder that can occur from a spontaneous musical idea that is expressed directly, in real time. But he also has a deep fascination for the formal architecture of music, and it informs everything he plays. In his most inspired playing, the actual structure of his musical thought serves as an expressive device. As he plays, he listens to how ideas unwind, and the order in which they reveal themselves. Each tune has a strongly felt narrative arch, whether it expresses itself in a beginning, an end, or something left intentionally open-ended. The two sides of Mehldau’s personality—the improviser and the formalist—play off each other, and the effect is often something like controlled chaos.

Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace since the mid-1990s, with his trio and as a solo pianist. His performances convey a wide range of expression. There is often an intellectual rigor to the continuous process of abstraction that may take place on a given tune, and a certain density of information. That could be followed by a stripped down, emotionally direct ballad. Mehldau favors juxtaposing extremes. He has attracted a sizeable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience in his performance.

In addition to his trio and solo projects, Mehldau has worked with a number of great jazz musicians, including a rewarding gig with saxophonist Joshua Redman’s band for two years, recordings and concerts with Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, and Lee Konitz, and recording as a sideman with the likes of Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, and Charles Lloyd. For more than a decade, he has collaborated with several musicians and peers whom he respects greatly, including the guitarists Peter Bernstein and Kurt Rosenwinkel and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner. Mehldau also has played on a number of recordings outside of the jazz idiom, like Willie Nelson’s Teatro and singer-songwriter Joe Henry’s Scar. His music has appeared in several movies, including Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Wim Wender’s Million Dollar Hotel. He also composed an original soundtrack for the French film, Ma Femme Est Une Actrice. Mehldau composed two new works commissioned by Carnegie Hall for voice and piano, The Blue Estuaries and The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, which were performed in the spring of 2005 with the acclaimed classical soprano, Renee Fleming. These songs were recorded with Fleming and released in 2006 on the Love Sublime record; simultaneously, Nonesuch released an album of Mehldau’s jazz compositions for trio entitled House on Hill. A 2008 Carnegie Hall commission for a cycle of seven love songs for Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter premiered in 2010. Love Songs, a double album that paired the newly commissioned song cycle, with a selection of French, American, English, and Swedish songs that Mehldau and von Otter performed together, was released in late 2010 (on the Naïve label) to unanimous praise.

Mehldau was appointed as curator of an annual four-concert jazz series at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall during its 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons, with Mehldau appearing in at least two of the four annual concerts. In late January 2010 Carnegie Hall announced the 2010-11 season-long residency by Mehldau as holder of the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall—the first jazz artist to hold this position since it was established in 1995. Previous holders include Louis Andriessen (2009–2010), Elliott Carter (2008–2009), and John Adams (2003–2007).
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Chris Thile
In a review of his quintet Punch Brothers’ latest Nonesuch recording, Who’s Feeling Young Now?, London’s Independent called Chris Thile “the most remarkable mandolinist in the world.” The McArthur Foundation echoed that assessment when it named Thile one of its 23 MacArthur Fellows for 2012—a recipient of its prestigious “Genius Grant.” In honoring Thile, the MacArthur Foundation noted that his “lyrical fusion of traditional bluegrass with elements from a range of other musical traditions is giving rise to a new genre of contemporary music.”

Prior to recording Punch Brothers acclaimed new disc, Thile completed an album of tradition-upending interpretations of bluegrass classics with guitarist Michael Daves, Sleep With One Eye Open, which garnered a 2011 Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. He also recorded The Goat Rodeo Sessions with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Stuart Duncan, and Thile’s mentor and frequent collaborator Edgar Meyer, which won the 2012 Grammy for Best Folk Album.

After a lengthy 2012 Punch Brothers tour, Thile, always up for another challenge, immediately embarked on a series of duo dates with fellow virtuoso, the jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. Said the Washington Post, “Their complex work translated to plain-faced beauty: simple, direct and exquisite.” In between his Punch Brothers shows, Thile also found time to present his Mandolin Concerto: Ad astra per alas porci with several chamber orchestras around the United States, including a date at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium.

A child prodigy, Thile first rose to fame as a member of Grammy Award-winning trio Nickel Creek, with whom he released three albums and sold two million records. As a soloist he has released five albums, as well as performing and recording extensively as a duo with Edgar Meyer and with fellow eminent mandolinist Mike Marshall. Other stellar musicians with whom Thile has collaborated include Béla Fleck and Hilary Hahn. Nonesuch Records released Thile’s most recent recording, Bach: Partitas and Sonatas, Vol.1, produced by Meyer in 2013.

Jeff Ballard (drums, percussion)
Jeff Ballard grew up in Santa Cruz, California, toured with Ray Charles from 1988 – 1990 and moved to New York in 1990. Since then, he has played and recorded with many artists including Lou Donaldson, Danilo Perez, Chick Corea, and Joshua Redman. Currently, as well as being a member of the Brad Melhdau Trio, he is a co-leader of the collective group FLY (featuring Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard), and Joshua Redman’s Elastic Band.

Larry Grenadier (bass)
Larry Grenadier attended Stanford University where he received a BA Degree in English Literature. After moving to the East Coast he played Gary Burton Band, touring US and Europe. He moved to New York City and played with Joe Henderson, Betty Carter, Pat Metheny and the John Scofield Group. For the past year when not touring and recording with Brad Mehldau Trio he tours and records with the Pat Metheny Trio.

Tickets to a Brad Mehldau Celebration are: $32 ($28 Walker members) each performance or $55 ($50 Walker members) for both shows. Tickets are extremely limited and only available by calling 612.375.7600.

Acknowledgements
The Walker Art Center’s performing arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, the William and Nadine McGuire Commissioning Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.Producers’ Council

Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers’ Council: Russell Cowles; Sage Cowles; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury and Henry Pillsbury; Emily Maltz; Dr. William W. and Nadine M. McGuire; Leni and David Moore, Jr.; Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney; and Frances and Frank Wilkinson.

Chris Thile (left) and Brad Mehldau

Photos: courtesy the artists

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